Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 168 pages of information about Earths In Our Solar System Which Are Called Planets, and Earths In The Starry Heaven Their Inhabitants, And The Spirits And Angels There.

is that most persons here think from the sensuals
which belong to the body, and therefore believe in
the existence of nothing but what they see and touch;
and that few of them can be withdrawn from external
sensual things to interior things, and thus be elevated
into the light of heaven, in which such things are
perceived. Hence it is, that they can have no
idea of their soul or spirit as of a man, but as of
wind, or air, or a breath without form, in which there
is yet something vital. This is the reason why
they do not believe they shall rise again till the
end of the world, which they call the Last Judgment,
when the body, though mouldered into dust, and scattered
by every wind, will be brought together again and
conjoined to its soul or spirit. I added, that
it is permitted them to believe this, since those who,
as was said, think from external sensual things, can
conceive no otherwise than that the soul or spirit
cannot live as a man in a human form, unless it receive
again that body which it carried about in the world;
wherefore, unless it were asserted that the body will
rise again, they would reject from their heart as
incomprehensible the doctrine of the resurrection
and of eternal life. But nevertheless this thought
concerning the resurrection has this advantage with
it, that it leads them to believe in a life after
death, a consequence of which belief is, that when
they lie on a sick bed, and do not, as theretofore,
think from worldly and corporeal things, thus not from
sensual things, they then believe that they shall
live immediately after their decease; they then also
speak of heaven, and of the hope of a life there immediately
after death, quite apart from their doctrinal concerning
the Last Judgment. I related further, that sometimes
it had been matter of surprise to me, that when those
who are in faith speak of a life after death, and
of their friends and relatives who are dying or dead,
and do not at the same time think about the Last Judgment,
they believe that they will live or are living as men
immediately on their decease. But as soon as thought
concerning the Last Judgment flows in, this idea is
changed into the material idea concerning their earthly
body, that it is again to be conjoined to their soul;
for they do not know that every man is a spirit as
to his interiors, and that this it is which lives
in the body and in each of its parts, and not the
body which lives of itself; and that it is the spirit
of every one from which his body has its human form,
and which, consequently, is principally the man, and
in a similar form, but invisible to the eyes of the
body, yet visible to the eyes of spirits. Hence
also, when the sight of a man’s spirit is opened,
which is effected by the removal of the bodily sight,
angels appear as men: in this manner angels appeared
to the ancients, as recorded in the Word. I have
also sometimes spoken with spirits, with whom I had
been acquainted when they lived as men in the world,
and I have asked them whether they had any inclination
to be clothed again with their earthly bodies, as
they used to think would be the case. But they
fled far away at the very idea of such a conjunction,
being smitten with amazement that, while in the world,
they should have thought in this manner under the
influence of so blind a belief, devoid of all understanding.